On a side note, my grandfathers grew up in the coal mining region around Scranton, Pennsylvania. The both dropped out of school in the sixth grade because, at age 12, they were then old enough to start work in the mines to help support their families. Neither went formally back to school, though they taught themselves, and in the end, both finished their careers in high executive positions, one with the railroad, the other in the insurance industry. History tells us that a degree of any sort is not the sina que non of intelligence. And bottom line, the prosecutor should feast on this defense.

‘I believe that politicians, lawyers, busy-bodies and do-gooders are like salamis- greatly improved by hanging for a time.’ Oswald Bastable

"The loss of freedom is like cancer; it will spread slowly but surely across all parts of society until our liberty has been utterly eaten away and we are left with nothing but a half-forgotten idea of what freedom was."